April 14, 2004
In the pet loss books, it says sometimes owners would go to the store and unconsciously buy dog food, even though they don't have dogs anymore. Well, yesterday when I went to the pet supply store to get cat food, I was looking through some printed towels looking for one that has Springers on it, even though I know I probably will not get another Springer (it will just be too much comparisons, and the new dog will never measure up to Penelope, but at least with another breed, I will have less to compare with). So I had to stop myself and think, "What am I doing?"
Most of Penelope's stuff I will probably use it on the next dog, but there are some stuff that I just can't bear it to let another animal use it. So I'm storing those items in her bone shaped container. And it has her name on it, the one that Virginia made with her tag machine. It's like Penelope�s special treasure chest.
April 17, 2004
A week before Penelope died, I dreamt about her for the first time in the 13 years I've known her. But I don't remember what the dream was about. I don't really think it was a sad dream. Two nights before Penelope died, I dreamt about her again. This time, we were on an enclosed wooden deck, and bad things kept coming up from this opening in the deck. I used a sword and kept slaying the monsters and trolls. At the end, when finally all the bad things were gone, I found Penelope dead on the ground, covered with mud and blood. Apparently the bad things had gotten to her when I was busy fighting the bad things. For three nights following Easter, I dreamt about Penelope also. In one dream, we were in a third-floor apartment. Some bad buys were trying to break in through the front door. So I carried Penelope down to the ground through the fire escape ladder. But when we got down there, the bad guys had already got down to the ground floor through the front stairs and came to the back of the building toward us. I told Penelope to stay and again I was fighting the bad guys with a sword. But there was a break in the fighting, then the bad guys were carrying a sack and showed it to me, and they told me that they had killed Penelope and her body's in the sack. I think the bad things and the bad guys symbolize the cancer. And even though I was fighting so hard, they still killed Penelope.
When Grandma died, I dreamt about her for three consecutive nights after her death. In one of the dreams, we were climbing a mountain, and at one point, she looked at me and seemed convey to me with her eyes, that she wants to jump off the cliff. And I pleaded with her, "Grandma, please don't go." But she still seemed to want to do it. It was similar in the two other dreams. Grandma was probably in middle stage of Alzheimer's before she died, and before she got the disease, we were very close. But I remember she used to say during her early stage of the disease, that she was a burden to the family, and she wanted to die. Maybe that's where the dream came from.
When Grandma died, I started worrying about what's going to happen when Penelope dies, because she was about as old as Grandma. Both Grandma and Penelope died in similar ways. Grandma wondered out one morning and the family didn't find her until that night. She was unconscious in the park that's five or six miles away from where she started off. Apparently she walked all those miles and when they found her, her clothes was wet, either from the night dew or from her sweat. When the family got her home, she seemed fine. But 36 hours later, when she was in her bed resting, she died. Whereas Penelope died during the walk. Grandma was mentally exhausted, and Penelope was physically exhausted when she died.
When I was watching Golden Girls last night, it was the episode about Blanche dreams about her husband. I wish I can have a dream like Blanche where I get to hug Penelope, and then a dream where I get to hug Grandma.
